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82 of 85 people found the following review helpful:
4.0 out of 5 stars
Gripping but uncomfortable...a terrific story, September 16, 2009
This review is from: The War After Armageddon (Hardcover)
The War After Armageddon by Ralph Peters is one intense experience. Peters' ability to deal with small, intense scenes in his story adds a realism that is second to none.
The story is pretty straightforward. The antagonism between east and west has finally boiled over. Israel is gone, a wasteland. Many cities in the United States have been turned into desolate landscapes after dirty bombs have been exploded in the major centers and many European cultural centers have also been decimated. The United States in on a "crusade" (dare I use the word) to put an end to Islamic extremists. America is landing troops in what is left of Israel to once and for all capture the holy land, even if it is a radioactive desert. Warfare is back to its most fundamental elements with most of the advanced weapons disabled or neutralized because of counter electronics measures. Scenes in the book are almost medieval in their feeling. Lt. General Gary "Flintlock" Harris is a terrific character. Anyone who has been in the military will at once identify with General Harris; he is authentic. The dialog between characters is as real as you'd want it and not stiff and contrived.
The War After Armageddon illustrates one possible outcome to the tension gripping both east and west now and for the last fifty years. It illustrates what happens when reason is replaced with hatred and intolerance.
Ralph Peters' book is scary because of its plausibility. While you're turning the pages the realization is constantly with you that this could actually happen; we really are this close to the abyss. In fact, I experienced the same discomfort reading Peter's book as I did when I read One Second After by William R. Forstchen. Forstchen's book deals with nuclear weapons exploded in the atmosphere over the United States that throws us back into the stone-age because all electrical devices are rendered useless.
For the post apocalyptic crowd and those that enjoy an action packed read, The War After Armageddon is a book you'll want to read.
I highly recommend.
PEACE to all.
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67 of 76 people found the following review helpful:
5.0 out of 5 stars
Exciting New Novel From Ralph Peters, September 15, 2009
This review is from: The War After Armageddon (Hardcover)
Reading Ralph Peters' dark new novel, The War After Armageddon, is, in a way, much like driving by a grisly traffic accident - the view is horrific, but you just can't look away. Peters' novel is, indeed, compellingly horrific, the plot driven along by a realism that only a writer with this author's background, experience and vision can achieve and pass along to the reader in a dramatic narrative. Peters, today's most insightful strategist when observing in print or in his many TV appearances as guest commentator what is really taking place in the dangerous world around us, has the rare ability to think through and vividly imagine the second-, third-, and even fourth-order effects of policy decisions today's world leaders are making. The hellish world vision that Peters' describes in The War After Armageddon may on the surface seem far-fetched; yet, he's skillfully applied his superb insight as a strategist, experienced intelligence officer, and veteran world traveler to show us what might happen in a world where mankind's oldest motivators - faith and blood - have succeeded in trumping reason and good will.
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42 of 47 people found the following review helpful:
5.0 out of 5 stars
Soul-shattering future war scenario, September 24, 2009
This review is from: The War After Armageddon (Hardcover)
First off, this book is not the great American novel, or anybody's great novel. To assess the book from that perspective is to miss the author's point. Ralph Peters has a message for us, and that message is best delivered in a novel's format.
The message that Peters has is straightforward enough: beware the true believers on all sides lest they assume the powers they dearly believe are theirs. Democracy and its attendant privileges, often misunderstood as rights, is a most fragile affair. Peters argues that a cruel use of the nuclear genie by a few can cause a counter-reactionary avalanche that swallows the perpetrators, innocents, and what we understand as Western civilization's liberality all at once.
In his story, the only place of moral repose in severe crises, if we can call it that, is among the secular military. This small group, banished to backwaters by a religious government that fully supports an SS-like Military Order of the Brothers in Christ (MOBIC), retains the only sense of honor, duty and devotion to liberal principles within an America that has been violated by several nuclear explosions, all from true believers in the Middle East.
His characters generally are cardboard cut-outs. Don't read this to find a Prince Andre or a Pvt Cacciato or even a CPT Yossarian. Read this instead for the inter-connectedness of world ideas, events, and actions if things go wrong in a big way.
If you consider yourself a student of the military or military strategy, this book should be a foremost addition to your reading library. You may not like what you read, but it undoubtedly will make you think. And we must read these ideas, for the Hobbesian state of nature is not as far away as we would like to believe.
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